The opposition’s home affairs spokesman James Paterson has been speaking about the approval of 2000 visas to Palestinian residents since the start of Israel’s war with Hamas.
Home Affairs officials said the median processing time for visitor visas, across all countries, was a day which Paterson questioned during a Senate estimates hearing yesterday.
The opposition’s home affairs spokesman James Paterson.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“How can they possibly assure themselves there is not one Hamas supporter among them? And how will it help social cohesion if they manage to slip through?” he asked at the hearing.
This morning Paterson was quizzed about the visas, and whether he trusted the intelligence services.
“I do trust our intelligence agencies, but they’ve been given an impossible task. And that task is to approve people from a war zone controlled by a terrorist organisation in as little as 24 hours on average,” he said.
He said there was no denying there was a genuine humanitarian need in Gaza, and there were innocent victims in the area.
“But there are also supporters of Hamas in Gaza. There’s no doubt about that.
“And if any one of those came to Australia as part of this cohort of 2000 people, I think that’d be very dangerous for our country and damaging for our social cohesion.”
Only 334 people from the Palestinian territories have actually arrived in Australia after being granted a visitor visa since October, reflecting the difficulty of escaping Gaza.
Source Agencies
